Chrome’s autofill used to stop at your address. Now it reads your Gmail

Chrome’s autofill has spent years filling in the same few things: your name, your address, your card number. Google is now letting it read your Gmail. When you click into a field on a web form, Chrome’s enhanced autofill can offer a flight booking code, a parcel tracking number or an online order number it found in your inbox, listed under a “Suggested by Gemini” label in the dropdown.

Anyone who has checked in for a flight with the airline’s site in one tab and an inbox search for “confirmation” in another will see the appeal. TechCrunch compared it to the iPhone trick that lifts one-time passcodes out of text messages and puts them above the keyboard. Chrome now does the same for the long strings of letters and numbers that sit in confirmation emails, which most people copy by hand.

The feature runs on Gemini in Chrome and Personal Intelligence, the opt-in setting that lets Google’s AI tools look inside Gmail and other Google apps. Google says sensitive data is encrypted and that you decide in Chrome’s settings whether enhanced autofill is on and what it can reach. According to Android Authority, tapping a suggestion shows where it came from, and the same menu lets you remove it or jump to the autofill settings.

The version rolling out is narrower than the one Google tested. When the idea appeared in Chrome Canary, the experimental build, it could draw on Gmail, Google Photos and “other connected apps”, Android Authority reported. The stable feature appears limited to Gmail for now, although the source label next to each suggestion leaves room for more apps later.

The convenience runs through the most sensitive account many people have. An inbox holds bank alerts, medical appointments, password resets and messages from other people, and Google has not shown how the controls look in practice; Android Authority, which had not received the feature yet, said the company offered no look at them. Google’s privacy policy now also says Search can use data that people make available through Personal Intelligence to personalize content, including ads. Android Authority noted that this does not mean autofill data will shape the ads you see, but Google’s short announcement does not address the overlap. It also does not say how Chrome treats a booking email that turns out to be fake.

Availability is limited. Enhanced autofill is rolling out only in the United States, on desktop and in Chrome for Android and iOS, and only for Gemini in Chrome users who have switched Personal Intelligence on. Gemini in Chrome itself has spread to the UK, Canada, India, Latin America and much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East over the past year, but Google has given no date for this feature outside the US.

Google first previewed the feature in May and announced the rollout on October 28, describing it as “beginning to roll out”, so it may take a while to reach every eligible account. It can be switched off in Chrome’s autofill settings, and Gmail can be disconnected from Personal Intelligence in your Google Account.

Autofill used to need you to type something once before it could remember it. This version only needs someone to have emailed it to you.

Tags: Folarin Balogun, Meghan Markle, Google, Gemini, privacy, Gmail, Google Chrome, Personal Intelligence